Stronger Together
is the sixth episode of the first season and the 6th overall episode of Station 19. Short Summary Andy, Jack and 18 other candidates take the captaincy drill test, gunning for one spot as captain of Station 19. Meanwhile, Travis is serving as acting captain while Andy and Jack are away for the day and Ben confronts Vic about her fears. Full Summary Piper and Finley are walking down the street. Finley is thinking about taking a job in New York since she feels there's a professional ceiling in Seattle. Piper thinks there could be other reasons to stay. Finley asks to be excited for her. Piper is excited. She’s sure Finley will love it. Just as Piper goes to add something, a man trips due to a pothole and bumps into her. As they continue walking, cars drive over the pothole, slowly enlarging it. While preparing lunch for her father, Andy tells Maya that she ran from Ryan's porch and hid in the bushes until he went back inside. Andy tells Maya not to let Pruitt eat cheesesteaks. Andy's captaincy drill test is today. Maya says it's going to be a piece of cake. She already aced the written exam. Pruitt comes in and says today will be the hardest thing she ever attempted in her life. The test is called The Incinerator because it can burn you alive. The day he took the test, somebody died. They call the fire a controlled burn, but fire isn't something they can really control. The only way to pass the test is to show who's boss. Andy says she bosses well. The doorbell rings. Andy thinks it's Jack as they are carpooling to the test. They can still sit in a car together. She leaves the kitchen.  She opens the door and she's surprised to see Ryan. He brought her a good luck charm. They used to pass it back and forth as kids. The last time they used it was when he tested for the police academy. She remembers handing the marble back and forth. He says it works every time. She has been wanting to talk to him, but their conversation is cut short by the arrival of Jack. He calls Ryan neighborly for stopping by. Andy and Jack take off. Travis is reading the Captain’s manual. He has seniority now that Jack and Andy are off. He checks if Maya and Dean completed their assigned tasks. Dean notices he had his uniform professionally pressed. He asks Dean for an inventory list. Victoria comes up. She saw the vehicle assignments. She figured he wanted to be on truck instead of the aid car. He agrees and she’s happy to switch. Ben overheard the conversation, but Victoria ignores him. Jack and Andy are driving in silence. She brings up that she told her father and Maya that they didn’t need to give each other the silent treatment. He prefers if they keep their distance today so they can do what they are there to do. Andy says they’ll have to figure out to get along when one of them makes Captain, but he says that is not today. Andy and Jack arrive and are welcomed by Frankel. Andy is surprised to see so many candidates. Frankel tells them to take a seat. As they put their gear away, Andy sees the Fire Chief Ripley. Frankel tells the candidates they had the highest written exams scores. Today, they’ll put that theory into practice. Each of them will lead a group of four through a call inside the warehouse. The goal is to extinguish the fire and rescue a 200-pound dummy. Today’s rankings will follow them throughout the entire application process. If they are unable to retrieve the dummy, they forfeit. Ripley tells them today is about being a leader, not winning. Frankel reminds them no heroics. She’s not in the mood to lose a firefighter today. Charlotte Dearborn, who’s sitting next to Andy, wonders if there’s ever a day she’s in that mood. She asks Frankel how many Captain spots are open in the department this year. Frankel says just one: Station 19’s. The team are assigned alphabetically. Andy, Jack, and Charlotte are in a group with Cole Edmonds. That means Andy and Jack are stuck together after all. Back at the station, Dean has to answer a call as Pruitt is throwing up in a garbage can. As he asks for the caller’s contact info, Pruitt notices him watching and returns to the desk. He demands the phone and ignores Dean’s concerns. Dean says a preschool wants a tour and leaves Pruitt to deal with it. The four members of the groups introduce themselves. Charlotte has heard amazing things about station 19. Jack confirm the stories are true. They draw numbers. Andy is up last, which is the spot no one wants as the building’s trashed and everybody’s fried. Cole is first. He initiates a fake huddle to appear impressive to the rest. They all get geared up and enter the warehouse with Cole loudly stressing that they’re in this together. They soon come across a first fire, but judging by the smoke, there’s another one. Cole instructs the women to stay back with the secondary hose and cover the men. He condescendingly calls Andy “hun” as she objects to his plan, after which he and Jack continue their way. Andy and Charlotte are not pleased. Ben finds Victoria staring at a blowtorch and asks if it’s helping. He’s seen her avoid fires for weeks. She says everything’s fine, but he begs to differ. He’s seen surgeons be so rattled that they become afraid to cut. If it goes on for too long, it can mess with your head and it’s hard to come back from. She doesn’t need to be doctored and walks off as the claxon announces an emergency. Charlotte and Andy catch up with Cole and Jack after having put out the fire. They already checked a dozen of rooms and have concluded that the fire must be at the other side a crawl space. Charlotte suggest she or Andy crawl through as they are small, but Cole doesn’t want to get held up. He asks Jack to back him and tells the ladies they’ll holler if they get hung up. “Excuse me, hun,” he tells Charlotte to get her to move aside. Charlotte says that’s not her name. Andy would like to see Cole pull this crap in front of Frankel. She wonders if he has a shot. Charlotte thinks everyone here does. Station 19 is kind of a legend. Andy knows it’s great. Charlotte realizes it must be weird to think about someone new coming in. The men then return with the dummy. They exit the warehouse. Frankel stops the stopwatch and has Ripley sign off. Cole thinks he was definitely faster than last time. He wonders why the holdup with Frankel. Charlotte says sometimes ladies have to talk things over with the big, tall man. Andy and Jack separate themselves from the others. They agree that someone like Cole can’t win. They have to be on their game. Jack stresses they both have to beat Cole’s good time. The rest of the station arrives at their call, but they can’t find the victim. A car then moves, revealing Piper apparently stuck in the middle of a crosswalk. She calls them over. Victoria sees a truck approaching her and runs over to protect her. The truck narrowly avoids the two of them. Victoria and Piper exchange names and the rest of the team approach. Piper explains she was crossing the street and stepped into the pothole, causing it to give way. Now she’s stuck. Travis wants to secure everybody to the engine in case a sinkhole develops. They decide to roll with his instructions. Maya and Victoria try to lift Piper, but Ben stops them. The asphalt is piercing Piper’s flesh, so they’ll need to dig her out. The team is now following Charlotte’s orders. She instructs Andy to go past the fire and start the sweep from there, but they all agree that is against the basics. Charlotte orders them to listen. They need to divide and conquer. She’s on a tight schedule. With Andy off, Charlotte and the men come across a blaze. Jack wants to go around and extinguish it from closer to the source, but Charlotte says she has no time for that. She leaps through the flames. Meanwhile, Andy enters a room with another blaze and finds a dummy. As she secures the dummy for transport, she fails to notice that the flames are spreading until she’s blocked from the exit. That is why you never go past the fire. She asks for backup. Jack informs her they are on the way. The three others arrive with the hose. Andy backs away and the others extinguish the fire. Charlotte cheers. She wants to give Andy a high five, but Andy walks past her with the dummy. Back outside the warehouse, Frankel and Ripley congratulate Charlotte on her all-time record. Charlotte returns to the team and tells Cole that that’s how it’s done, calling him “hun.” Jack and Andy realize they now have to beat her time. The team is digging out Piper. Ben quietly warns Maya to keep an eye out for compartment syndrome. Piper overhears that she might lose her leg. She starts panicking, but Victoria asks if she lives nearby. Piper says she used to, but she comes by for a walk and coffee every morning. A friend lives closely. Victoria offers to call the friend, but Piper would rather not have her see her like this. Victoria says it might be nice to have someone at the hospital. Piper refuses as she has to get used to doing things without Finley. She admits she can’t bear her moving. She was on the way to talk to her about it, but then this happened. She wants to go home. Andy approaches Charlotte during their break and says her calls were dangerous. Charlotte chooses to call them assertive. They have to play rough to beat the men. Charlotte thinks pushing her hard helps, but Andy disagrees. Knowing that Andy was only recently promoted, Charlotte gives her a pro tip: you don’t get the best from your team by coddling them. You have to push. Charlotte would never want to squash another woman to win this, but she’ll do it if she has to. She suggests Andy focuses on her own strategy since she has an uphill climb ahead. Andy says that while she may have been only promoted recently, she has more experience running a station than anybody else here as she has been it with her father since she was a kid. She’s confident she can take Charlotte. Andy doesn’t mind being underestimated because it makes it easier to sneak in, rise up, and take over. Charlotte calls her adorable. While securing Maya and Victoria to the engine, Dean asks Ben if he knows that dilemma when you know something about someone and you don’t know what to do with it. Ben does. Dean says you don’t do something out of respect for that person, but in your heart, you know that other people need to know it. Travis comes up to remind them to focus on their job. Travis refuses to lose anybody on his first call in charge. Travis realises they are laughing at him, but they won’t when the street collapses, trapping them a giant hole of concrete and rebar. Ben and Dean still think he’s overreacting. Maya and Victoria wonder if the asphalt is pinning Piper’s femoral artery. They need to keep it that way as long as possible. Victoria asks Piper to let them know if her leg starts feeling heavy. Maya suggests she talk to her friend. Piper says she’s more than a friend to her. She has felt that way for some time, but she didn’t realize until this morning. They both had girlfriends. Piper doesn’t know how to tell her about her feelings. Maya suggests to just tell her. Piper says it’s easy for them to say, since they are fearless. Victoria understands Piper cares about what her friends thinks and that she doesn’t want her to think differently about her. At that moment, Finley arrives and runs up to Piper. She asks what happened. The lieutenants have extinguished the fire under Jack’s command. They start the sweep for the dummy. They check the entire building, but they can’t find it anywhere. Charlotte reminds him the clock is ticking. Jack orders to do another sweep, albeit each on another side of the building. They scatter. They soon reconvene without a dummy. Cole asks what now. Charlotte says they can eliminate Jack as competition. Jack takes Andy away from the group. The only thing left to do is leave. Andy reminds him that being wrong could take him out of the running. Jack has decided there is nothing left to do. Andy says it’s his call, so they’ll do what he decides. The group exits the warehouse without a dummy. Jack is visibly disappointed. Ripley comes up and asks about the dummy. Jack says there was none. Ripley tells him he’s the first candidate in five years to crack this version of the test, in a fantastic time nonetheless. Ripley is impressed and asks for Jack’s name. With the firefighters still working to free the leg, Piper tells Finley she doesn’t want her to move away. She doesn’t want to not see her again. She tells her she has feelings for her and she couldn’t say it this morning. She wasn’t sure how Finley would take it. Finley then kisses her. This isn’t how Piper imagined their first kiss. Finley and Piper agree to just say whatever they want to say from now on. Maya says that Piper’s BP is too low, which is most likely caused by a bleeding below the surface. They need to get her out now. Every minute makes a difference. Piper tells them her leg is feeling tight. Finley will accompany her to the hospital. She’s not going anywhere. The team then lifts Piper out of the hole and puts her on a gurney. They rush her to the aid car. The team enters the warehouse under Andy’s command. There’s very bad visibility since they are dealing with residual smoke from the previous tests. Andy says the point of this test is to show they are capable of running a team and none of the others have shown that quality today. She wants them to trust each other and work together, especially if they are going in blind. The group is crawling over the ground. They talk to stay connected as they move forward. After a creaking sound, the ceiling collapses over Cole, who gets knocked out. The others are fine. Since they let go when the ceiling collapsed, they have to dig through the rubble and find him. Jack finds him, but he can’t tell if he’s okay. Charlotte calls it in despite Andy’s objections. Frankel tells them the aid car is standing by and orders everybody to get out. The lights are turned on. Cole is coming to. Andy instructs the others to take Cole out. She wants to continue looking for the dummy since there’s still time before the entire building is compromised. Andy says this is her shot at captaining station 19. If this were a real call, she wouldn’t leave a victim behind. It’s time to show The Incinerator that she’s boss. Jack instructs Charlotte to take Cole out and he runs after Andy. Jack catches up with Andy as she encounters a hallway ablaze. He tells her they are using the buddy system, so he’s not leaving her. They extinguish the flames and proceed. They back away just in time to dodge pieces of wood falling from the ceiling. They proceed. Andy kicks in a door. They sweep the building and eventually find a dummy. They carry the dummy out of the building. The other candidates applaud, but Frankel clearly disapproves. Andy catches up with her and says she made it out with the dummy, but Frankel says may day means you have to get out immediately. Andy thinks she did the right thing, but Frankel insists she was selfish and broke protocol. She played a game instead of being a Captain. Andy thinks a true Captain wouldn’t flinch if she had the chance to save a human life. Ripley breaks them up before Andy can say something she might regret, and he also doesn’t like reprimanding his officers in front of their candidates. He reminds her she has to evaluate everyone unbiased. He dismisses her for now. Ripley tells Andy he understands why she did what she did, but their rules are in place for a reason. It’s the Captain’s job to remember that. She made it out now in this controlled environment, but in most cases, they would have dragged them out in body bags. Captains have to balance the moral and practical. He does not agree with her decision. He’ll see her at her panel interview. Pruitt finds Dean and says he’s thinking about going home. He might catch the end of the game. Dean will cover the reception. Pruitt asks Dean not to tell anybody about earlier. Dean says he feels better if Pruitt does. The team is enjoying takeout. They talk about the call. Maya thinks being stuck makes you honest with people. Dean decides to be honest now and tells Travis to wear less cologne. Ben asks about the likelihood of a pothole actually becoming a sinkhole. The team pretends it can happen at any time, any place. Travis says you never know when a disaster is lying in wait, ready to swallow them whole. Victoria then confesses she’s afraid of fire. Ben encourages her to go on. Victoria says she doesn’t have a lot of family. They are basically it. She has a problem. She’s been trying to work through it on her own since she knows it’s a disaster lying in wait. She didn’t know how they would react. She doesn’t know if this means she’ll have to say goodbye to her family. She doesn’t want that, but she thinks she can’t or shouldn’t hold this in. Travis asks what she means by afraid of fire. Victoria says she flinches every time she gets near a flame. She freezes up and it takes every ounce of self control not to run in the opposite direction. Travis says it’s the opposite of what you want to do as a firefighter. He checks if this has been going on for weeks. She confirms this and repeats she’s been trying to work on it on her own. Jack and Andy are driving home. Jack says they are not letting anybody from outside come in and take over. He’s still in this. He’ll win 19 for the both of them. Andy can’t talk about that now. The team sits in silence. Travis thanks Victoria for her honesty. They all know what they need to do next. An emotional Victoria says she’ll inform Jack and Andy when they get back, but Travis says no. They’ll keep this from them since they’ll have to report her. Travis says they’ll keep her in the aid car for the time being, or they’ll make sure she’s on pump or hydrant, until she’s ready to go back in. They all offer ways to help her. She thanks everyone for their support. Maya says they are family. As the group talks about Dean deliberately shrinking his shirts to tighten his sleeves, Ben gestures to Victoria that she did the right thing. Andy walks up to her porch. Ryan is there. He came to see how it went. Pruitt must be asleep since he didn’t answer the door. Andy says it’s been a long day. She returns the good luck charm and says it didn’t work today. She says it didn’t go well, even though she did kick ass. He offers to talk, but she thinks she needs to talk to her dad right now. She knows where to find him if she changes her mind. He goes home and she enters her house. She starts talking about her day, but starts to wonder if her dad is even home. Pruitt gets off the elevator at the hospital. He walks up to the desk and asks the nurse to page Dr. Bailey. Cast S191x06AndyHerrera.png|Andy Herrera S191x06BenWarren.png|Ben Warren S191x06JackGibson.png|Jack Gibson S191x06VictoriaHughes.png|Victoria Hughes S191x06RyanTanner.png|Ryan Tanner S191x06TravisMontgomery.png|Travis Montgomery S191x06DeanMiller.png|Dean Miller S191x06MayaBishop.png|Maya Bishop S191x06PruittHerrera.png|Pruitt Herrera S191x06FireChiefRipley.png|Fire Chief Lucas Ripley S191x06Finley.png|Finley S191x06Piper.png|Piper S191x06CharlotteDearborn.png|Charlotte Dearborn S191x06ColeEdmonds.png|Cole Edmonds S191x06BattalionChiefFrankel.png|Battalion Chief Frankel Main Cast *Jaina Lee Ortiz as Lieutenant Andy Herrera *Jason George as Dr. Ben Warren *Grey Damon as Lieutenant Jack Gibson *Barrett Doss as Victoria Hughes *Alberto Frezza as Ryan Tanner *Jay Hayden as Travis Montgomery *Okieriete Onaodowan as Dean Miller *Danielle Savre as Maya Bishop *Miguel Sandoval as Captain Pruitt Herrera Guest Stars *Brett Tucker as Fire Chief Lucas Ripley *Chelsea Ricketts as Finley *Phoebe Neidhardt as Piper *Jee Young Han as Charlotte Dearborn *Brad Beyer as Cole Edmonds *Leslie Hope as Battalion Chief Frankel Rescues Piper Piper was crossing the street when she stepped in a pothole and the road gave way. When the firefighters arrived, they tried to pull her out, but she was stuck, so they began to chip away at the concert around her to free her. They saw signs that she was bleeding in her leg and her leg started to get tight, so they decided they didn't have time to wait anymore and had to put her out. Once she was freed, they put her on a gurney and into the ambulance. Music "123" - Pom Poms "Better" - SYML Notes and Trivia *This episode scored 5.41 million viewers. *The table read for this episode took place on February 27, 2018. 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